In 2013, the University of Southern Denmark hired me together with a young Romanian colleague. While I was able to join straight away, she had to delay her arrival and extend her contract in Germany for an extra two months. Otherwise, she would have partly lost the entitlements accruing from her previous university’s pension scheme. This is because the minimum period to acquire occupational pension rights in Germany is five years. Hence, her right to the free movement of workers, guaranteed by the EU since 1958, was infringed.

The main problem lies with the coordination of social security rights across the EU. Even though the Coordination Regulations are the most advanced system worldwide that guarantees the portability of social security benefits for migrants, they cover statutory pension schemes only. By excluding supplementary, occupational pensions, they leave a regulatory gap in the protection of migrant workers under EU law. After decades of inertia, this suddenly changed in 2014 with the Supplementary Pension Rights Directive. Continue reading →